27. BURGLERY WITH........BONUS

Are you familiar with the term ‘Motherhood Statement’. It’s basically the act of stating something that is bleedingly obvious in its desirability, usually in the course of an argument. For example – ‘It is my firmly held belief that the selling of drugs to small children is TOTALLY unacceptable and I will NOT be swayed from this stand(see here – I am MAKING A STAND)point by anyone (as he or she not quite accuses his or her opponents of being entirely IN FAVOUR of selling drugs to small kids).

Skilled purveyors of the Motherhood Statement also manage to make it seem as if what they are saying is actually quite daring and courageous and possibly not to be expected from them or anyone else not possessed of the necessary guts and intestinal fortitude (guts/intestinal fortitude -that’s another thing this kind of person likes to do – say the same thing twice but slightly differently) to GET THE JOB DONE.

Politicians LOVE Motherhood Statements.

I say all this to illustrate that I know a statement of the bleeding obvious when I see one and would therefore like to say, in advance, that on balance - Electronic gaming is a Bad Thing and I will ONLY mention that I have won money at it on several occasions to illustrate that – I am fairly lucky at the winning stuff thing.

Obviously not VERY lucky or I would have won the lottery at some point and be typing this on a much more expensive laptop while checking out, well, probably a very similar view actually but definitely from a much more comfortable chair.

Good at winning small stuff though. Meat trays, chooks, ‘time to cash out’ amounts on the pokies and the odd beautiful wife and child.

And - just in case you thought all those ‘Win a Insert Sponsors Product here’ magazine competitions were corrupt, dodgy and resulted only in the editor’s wife scoring a long string of ‘Insert Sponsors Product’ - a mountain bike.

It was a green and white Scott Boulder and I won it by completing a 25 or words less type competition and I assume having it pulled out of whatever hat they pulled stuff out of at Australian Mountain Bike Magazine back in the early 90’s (though some cartoons I also did got printed in the magazine so maybe it wasn’t just dumb luck).

I had the Boulder from when I finished Uni, through my time working at Long Bay (as a Nurse) and for the first couple of years I was doing community work at Manly. Did exactly zero actual mountain biking on it (unless you count hopping up and down gutters) and I think it spent a lot of it time with totally treadless road tyres on it, but it was a good bike that did a lot of kilometres mainly due to the fact that this was a period during which I genuinely did not have any other transport option having moved out of home (again) and away from any parent owned vehicle I could conveniently bludge a loan of.

Not that happy then when I came home one afternoon to find it missing, the Unit door open and a human pooh on the landing.

Here’s another Motherhood Statement – People thieving stuff from honest and hard working nurses should not drop faeces on the staircase on the way out.

Next: My relationship with hills.